Boston Symphony Orchestra concert programs, Season

fShi -.jX
BOSTON
SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
SEVENTY-THIRD SEASON
i953- J 954
Carnegie Hall, New York
—
The
Berkshire Festival, 1954
AT TANGLEWOOD, LENOX, MASS.
By The
Boston Symphony Orchestra
CHARLES MUNCH,
will
Music Director
be expanded to six weeks of concerts by the full orchestra in the Shed, preceded by concerts in the Theatre,
as follows:
Theatre-Concert Hall
6 Wednesday Evenings at 8:30
July
7,
Recitals by famous
14, 21,
<.
2
chamber groups
g,
—
1
1
to
be announced.
Thkairi -Concert Hall
6 Friday Evenings at 8:30
July
j,
16, 23, 30,
Aug.
12
6,
(Thurs.)
Concerts by a chamber orchestra of Boston Symphom
players, Charles Munch, conductor, mostly devoted
to the music of Bach and Mozart.
6 Saturday Evenings at 8:30
6 Sunday Afternoons at 2:$o
July 10
>
— August
Concerts by the Boston
The Shed programs
will
Music Shed
\
15
Symphony
Orchestra.
include the principal choral and
instrumental works of Berlioz, opening with
The Damnation
of
Faust and closing with the Requiem. Soloists will include the
Claudio Arrau, Nicole Henriot, and Vera Franceschi;
violinists, Zino Francescatti, and Ruth Posselt; viola, William
Primrose; singers, Eleanor Steber, Martial Singher, David Poleri,
Donald Gramm, and others to be announced. Guest Conductors:
Pierre Monteux (2 concerts) Jean Morel, Richard Burgin.
pianists
,
12th Session of the Berkshire Music Center: July 5
For
full
program and
Berkshire Festival Office,
ticket
—
August 15
information, address the
Symphony
Hall, Boston 15, Mass.
New York
Carnegie Hall,
Sixty-eighth Season in
New York
SEVENTY-THIRD SEASON,
1953-1954
Boston Symphony Orchestra
CHARLES MUNCH,
Music Director
Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor
Concert Bulletin of the
Fourth Concert
WEDNESDAY EVENING, March
10
AND the
Fourth Matinee
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, March
13
with historical and descriptive notes by
John N. Burk
The TRUSTEES of the
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA,
Henry
Cabot
Kaplan
B.
.
Jacob J.
Richard C. Paine
John Nicholas Brown
Theodore P. Ferris
Alvan T. Fuller
N. Penrose Hallowell
W. Hatch
Jr.
.
Vice-President
.
Treasurer
Palfrey Perkins
Lewis Perry
Edward A. Taft
Raymond
Oliver Wolcott
George
T. D. Perry,
President
M. A. De Wolfe Howe
Michael T. Kelleher
Philip R. Allen
Francis
Inc.
E. Judd,
N.
S.
S.
Wilkins
Manager
Shirk, Assistant Managers
[1]
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ORCHESTRA?
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Of
these
3,610 are also Friends.
The
Orchestra needs your friendship.
are not yet a Friend, won't you
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become one by
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Inc.
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I
ask to be enrolled as a
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for the year 1953-54
and
I
of the
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pledge the
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current support of the Orchestra, covered by check herewith or
payable on
Name
Address
Checks are payable
[«]
to
Boston Symphony Orchestra
New York
Carnegie Hall,
New York
Sixty-eighth Season in
Boston Symphony Orchestra
CHARLES MUNCH,
Music Director
FOURTH CONCERTS
WEDNESDAY EVENING, March
"Romeo
Berlioz
10
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, March
13
Dramatic Symphony, Op.
17
et Juliette,"
I
Introduction: Combats
— Tumult — Intervention
Prologue: Choral recitative
of the Prince
(with Contralto)
(Contralto)
Stanzas
Choral Recitative
— Scherzetto
(Tenor with Chorus)
II
Romeo
alone
— Melancholy
Concert and Ball
— Festival
at the Capulets'
III
Calm Night
— The
Capulets' Garden Silent and Deserted
(Chorus)
—
Love Scene
IV
Scherzo:
Queen Mab, or
the Fairy of
Dreams
INTERMISSION
Funeral Procession of Juliet (Chorus)
Romeo in the Tomb of the Capulets
Finale: Recitative and Air of Friar Laurence
to Reconciliation
(Bass
— Exhortation
and Chorus)
SOLOISTS
MARY DAVENPORT, Contralto
JOHN McCOLLUM, Tenor
YI-KWEI SZE, Bass
(Friar Laurence)
Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society
G.
BALDWIN PIANO
W. Woodworth, Conductor
RCA VICTOR RECORDS
[3]
SYMPHONIANA
BERLIOZ REDIVIVUS
Public
notice
is
being
taken
of
an
increased awareness of the special quali-
music
—
Hector Berlioz
an interest prompted by the 150th anties of the
of
niversary of his birth, but surely greater
than that prompting would account
A
Berlioz
formed
Society
for.
been
recently
purpose of furthering
the
for
has
performance, publication, and recording
Munch
music. Charles
of his
made Honorary
Nothing,
of
admirable and
tation
of
has been
President.
course,
could
more
be
fruitful than such facili-
Berlioz performances
—
ex-
actual performances. It could be
added that these actual performances
have every prospect of gaining their
ends even without organized promotion.
cept
When
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[4]
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a
period
earlier
day
and
cherishes
fine
inspired discrimination in
use of color, then the music long
overlooked which bears these qualities
needs only
Charles
known
The
the
be heard to be enjoyed.
to
Munch
music
principal
continues
of
works
this
of
to
make
composer.
Berlioz will
Tanglewood next summer. The
Damnation of Faust, with the Harvard
alive with the realism, the
In addition,
of
at
Records
New High Fidelity "Victrola" phonographs bring out the hidden "highs"
and "lows" not reproduced by conventional phonographs. Recorded music
taste
be the feature of the Berkshire Festival
Victor
Fidelity
aesthetic
economy and
the
RCAVlCTOR
HIGH FIDELITY
the
away from the orchestral opulence
a
RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA
and Radcliffe Choruses, will open the
Festival and the Requiem will close it.
The
Festival
Chorus
will
participate
The
in this and in Romeo and
Song Cycle Nuits d'Ete with Eleanor
Juliet.
Steber as soloist will be performed, as
well as Harold in Italy with William
Primrose and the Fantastic Symphony.
"ROMEO AND
JULIET," Dramatic Symphony, Op.
17
By Hector Berlioz
Born December
"RomSo
Juliette,
et
Prologue en
The
Cote
Andre; died March
St.
8,
1869, in Paris
Symphonie dramatique avec Choeurs, Solos de Chant
et
composee d'apres la Tragedie de Shakespeare," was
performance was at the auditorium of the Conservatoire
recitatif choral,
written in 1839.
in Paris,
11, 1803, in
The
November
first
24, 1839, Berlioz conducting.
Introduction
calls for 2
flutes,
oboes, 2 clarinets, 4 bassoons, 4 horns, 2
2
trumpets, 2 cornets-a-piston, 2 trombones and tuba
(ophicleide),
and
strings.
The
Prologue adds a harp, the "Strophes" an English horn, the Scherzetto a piccolo and
drum, cymbals, triangle, 2 snaredrums and a second
bass flute, the Ball Scene a bass
harp; in the Love Scene the English horn
is
again introduced. In the
Queen Mab
Scherzo antique cymbals are added.
The
in
and published
score was revised
1857.
It
is
dedicated
Nicolo
to
in 1847, an(^ published in further revision
Paganini.
The
was written by Emile
text
Deschamps.
The first performance in Boston took place on October 14, 1881, by Theodore
Thomas's Orchestra, when Georg Henschel sang the baritone solo part. The Scherzo
had been played here by Thomas's Orchestra, November 28, 1873. The same conductor brought forward the symphony in New York in 1876. The first complete
performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra was on February 20, 1953, when
the tenor was Leslie Chabay, the contralto Margaret Roggero, and the bass YiKwei-Sze. The choruses from Harvard and Radcliffe participated. The instrumental
movements were played at these concerts February 17, 1888; March 1, 1889; November 24, 1893; April 17, 1896; December 8, 1899; February 6, 1903; April 21, 1916;
November 23, 1917; March 28, 1919; March 11, 1921; March 10, 1922; December 14,
1923; October 16, 1942; March 10, 1950.
I
Introduction; Combats
— Tumulte — Intervention
du Prince
Introduction (Orchestra)
Prologue
As in Shakespeare's
first
Prologue, the chorus
of the "two house-
tells
holds" in "fair Verona," and their "ancient grudge."
Prince's decree,
and the
ball at the Capulets.
The
It also tells of the
contralto
tells
in a
how Romeo wanders about the Capulet's palace,
drawn by his love for Juliet. The chorus relates how Romeo finds
Juliet in her balcony "confiding her love to the night," and how he
continuing recitative
reveals himself.
Choral Recitative: D'anciennes haines endormies ont
surgi
comme de
Vender
—
Capulets, Montagus, deux
maisons ennemies dans Verone ont croise" le fer.
Pourtant de ces sanglants desordres le Prince a reprime le cours en menacant
de mort ceux qui malgre ses ordres aux justices du glaive auraient encore recours.
Dans
ces instants
de calme une fete
est
donnee par
le
vieux chef des Capulets.
Contralto Solo Recitative: Le jeune Romeo plaignant sa destinie vient tristement
errer a I'entour du palais, car il aime d'amour Juliette, la fille des ennemis de
sa famille.
[5]
bruit des instruments, les chants melodieux, partent des
Choral Recitative: Le
salons oil Vor brille, excitant et la danse et les eclats joyeux. La fite est
terminee et quand tout bruit expire sous les arcades on entend les danseurs
fatigues s'eloigner en chantant.
Helas—
et
Romeo
encore cet air qu'elle respire,
blanche Juliette parait
la
du quitter Juliette. Soudain, pour respirer
franchit les murs du jardin. Dejd sur son balcon
soupire. Car
il
les
a
croyant seule jusqu'au jour confxe a
et se
amour. Romeo palpitant d'une
coeur
il
la
decouvre a Juliette
joie inquiete se
nuit son
de son
et
feux eclatent a leur tour.
Strophes (Contralto)
In two metrical verses, the contralto sings of the vows of the lovers,
and their delight, surpassing all the joys of life, making even the angels
of
God
jealous.
Premiers transports que nul n'oublie!
Premiers aveux, premiers serments de
deux amants
Sous
—
Plus haut que toute poesie
les etoiles d'ltalie;
chaud et sans zephires —
Que Voranger au loin parfume
Oil se consume le rossignol en longs
Dans
cet air
soupirs.
Quel
art dans sa langue choisie
—
Vivant tous deux d'une seule
Cachez
le
bien sous V ombre en fleurs
—
pleurs.
roi
ne seriez vous point dans notre exil
mortel
Cette poesie, elle-tneme
Dont Shakespeare
supreme
lui seul eut
secret
le
le ciel.
Croirait egaler les transports?
Heureux
enfants! et quels tresors
—
Payeraieni un seul de vos goutireif
Ah, savourez longtemps cette coupe de
dme
Ce feu divin qui vous embrase
Si pure extase que ses paroles sont des
Quel
—
Ou
Et qu'il remporta dans
Heureux enfants, aux coeurs de flamme
Lies d'amour par le hasard d'un seul
regard
Rendrait vos celestes appas?
Premier amour n'etes vous pas
miel,
Plus suave que les calices
Oil les anges de Dieu jaloux
de vos
delices
de vos chastes delires
Puisent
le
bonheur dans
le ciel.
Choral Recitative: Bientot de Romeo la pale reverie met tous ses amis en
Tenor Solo: "Mon cher," dit I'elegant Mercutio, "je parie que la reine Mab
gaiete.
t'aura
visite!"
SCHERZETTO
Queen Mab speech
is set in shortened form for tenor solo
with choral echoes, after which the chorus predicts bloodshed to follow,
Mercutio's
and
final reconciliation.
Tenor Solo and Small Chorus: Mab! La messagere
fluette et legere. Elle a pour char
une coque de noix que I'ecureuil a faconne; les doigts de I'araignee ont file
ses harnois. Durant les nuits la fee en ce mince equipage galope follement dans
le cerveau d'un page qui reve — espiegle tour ou molle serenade au clair de
lune sous
la tour.
En poursuivant
bronze d'un soldat
trompette
[6]
— il
.
.
.
s'eveille
il
et
sa
promenade
la petite
reine s'abat sur
reve canonnades et vives estocades
— le
tambour
d'abord jure et prie en jurant toujours
le col
et la
— puis
se
rendort
— et
ronfle avec ses camarades. C'est
bacchanal. C'est elle encore qui dans
au
bal.
Mais
Bientot
la
le
coq chante,
mort
le
jour
un reve
brille,
c'est
Mab
habille la jeune
Mab
fuit
qui faisait tout ce
ramene
fille et la
comme un
eclair
dans
I'air.
Montagus, domptes par les douleurs,
haine qui fit verser tant de sang et de
est souveraine. Capulets,
rapprochent enfin pour abjurer
se
Mab,
la
pleurs.
II
Romeo
seul
— Tristesse — Concert
et Bal.
Grande Fete chez Capulet.
(Orchestra)
The movement opens with
a pianissimo phrase for the violins, which,
developed into increasingly fervid expression, seems to
templation of the melancholy lover
who
reflect the con-
has strayed into the hostile
Dancing rhythms become the backthoughts. The tempo becomes allegro and the ballroom
territory of the Capulets' palace.
ground of his
strains more insistent. The isolated figure of Romeo intermittently
holds the attention, the music of festivity recurring and bringing the
close.
Ill
Scene d'amour
Nuit
sereine — Le
Jardin de Capulet silencieux et desert. Les jeunes Capulets
sortant de la fete, passent en chantant des reminiscences de la
The movement opens with an
allegretto (pianissimo)
voices of passing revellers sing snatches of song.
the
muted
strings;
musique du
An
in
bal.
which the
adagio begins with
expressive single voices of the violas, horn,
and
stand out in music of increasing ardor and richness. A recitative
passage from the solo 'cello suggests the voice of Romeo, although the
'cellos
movement is developed in purely musical
and ends upon a pizzicato chord.
fashion. It dies
away
at last
you ask me which of my works I prefer," wrote Berlioz in 1858,
"my answer is that of most artists: the love scene in 'Romeo and
"If
Juliet.'
r
"
NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
A
College of Music
Chester W. Williams, Dean
Harrison Keller, President
DEPARTMENT SUPERVISORS
Opera Department
Violin
Department
Richard Burgin
Boris Goldovsky
Voice Department
Frederick Jagel
Organ Department
George Faxon
Piano Department
Howard Goding
Everett Titcomb
Church Music
Music Education
Leta Whitney
Academic Department
Jean Demos
Popular Music
Wright Briggs
Theory and Composition
Carl McKinley
For further information, apply to the Dean, 290 Huntington Ave., Boston
[71
Chorus:
Ohe — Capulets— bonsoir, bonsoir!
Ah, quelle nuit, quel festin.
Bal divin. Quel festin
Que de
au
revoir.
folles paroles!
—
Belles Vdronaises
Sous
cavaliers
les
grands melezes.
Allez river de bal et d''amour
Allez rever d 'amour.
Allez rever d'amour jusqu'au jour.
Tra
la la la.
Adagio {Scene
IV
La
reine
Mab, ou
d' amour)
la fee des songes.
(Orchestra)
The
place of a Trio
Mab
prestissimo,
Scherzo,
pianissimo almost throughout.
is
The
taken by an allegretto section which recurs. "Queen
is
wrote Berlioz to his friend Heine,
"attended by the buzzing insects of a summer's night and launched at
in her microscopic car,"
by her tiny horses, fully displayed to the Brunswick public
her lovely drollery and her thousand caprices. But you will understand my anxiety on this subject; for you, the poet of fairies and
full gallop
elves, the
know
own
brother of those graceful and malicious
little
creatures,
only too well with what slender thread their veil of gauze
how
woven, and
is
serene must be the sky beneath which their many-
colored tints sport freely in the pale starlight."
Convoi Funebre de Juliette
Marche Fuguee instrumentale d'abord, avec une psalmodie sur une
dans
les voix;
The
seule note
vocale ensuite, avec la psalmodie dans l'orchestre.
funeral music of Juliet
is
played by the orchestra while the
chorus intones a dirge upon a single note.
the solemn refrain,
and the
Chorus of Capulets: Jetez des
tombeau notre soeur adoree.
Then
the chorus takes
up
orchestra, intermittently, the pedal point.
fleurs
pour
la
vierge expiree! Et suivez jusqu'au
Romeo au Tombeau
des Capulets.
(Orchestra)
Invocation
— Reveil
de
Juliette. Joie delirante, desespoir;
dernieres angoisses et
mort des deux amants.
Finale
La foule accourt au cimetiere — Rixe des Capulets
Air du pere Laurence. Serment de Reconciliation.
The Montagues and
They
[8]
upon
them and
finally
the death of the lovers as a dread
at last
make
a
Montagus. Recitatif
et
Capulets resume their quarrel in the cemetery,
until Friar Laurence reproaches
look
et des
vow
of reconciliation.
persuades them to
example of
their folly.
Chorus of Capulets and Montagues:
Montagues:
Quoi — Romeo de retour —
Pour Juliette il s'enferme au tombeau
Des Capulets que sa famille abhorre!
Capulets:
Des Montagus ont
De
tombeau
brise le
Juliette expiree a I'aurore.
Ah malediction sur eux.
Romeo — Juliette! Ciel!
Morts tous les deux et leur sang fume encore.
Quel mystere. Ah quel mystere affreux.
Pere Laurence: Je vais devoiler le mystere — ce cadavre c'etait I'epoux de Juliette.
Voyez vous ce corps etendu sur la terre, c'etait la femme, helas, de Romeo, c'est
moi qui les ai maries.
(Chorus)
Marie's!
:
Oui, je dois I'avouer. J'y voyais
deux maisons unis.
(Chorus)
Amis de
:
Nous
les
C
Montagus!
j
Capulets!
gage salutaire d'une amitie future entre vos
le
maudisons.
Mais vous avez repris la guerre de famille. Pour fuir un autre hymen, la
fille au desespoir vint me trouver. "Vous seul," s 'ecria-t 'elle "auriez
pu me sauver. Je n'ai plus qu'd mourir." Dans ce peril extreme, je lui fis prendre
malheureuse
— afin
de conjurer
et le froid
de
trompe dans
sa
,
la
la
le sort
—
un breuvage qui
le soir
mort. Et je venais sans crainte
meme
ici
lui
fis
preter la pdleur
la secourir,
mais Romeo,
funebre enceinte, m'avait devance pour mourir sur
le
corps de
bien-aimee. Et presqu'd son reveil Juliette, informee de cette mort qu'il
porte, en son sein devaste
dans
(Chorus)
I'eternite,
quand
j'ai
du
fer
paru.
de
Romeo
s'etait
contre elle armee, et passait
Voild toute la verite.
:
Maries!
—
Pere Laurence:
Air
Pauvres enfants que
je
pleure
Tombes ensemble avant I'heure
Sur votre sombre demeure
Viendra pleurer, viendra pleurer
I'avenir.
Grande par vous dans Vhistoire,
Verone un jour sans y croire
Aura sa peine et sa gloire
Dans votre seul souvenir.
Oil sont Us maintenant
Ces ennemis farouches
— Montagus —
Venez, voyez, touchez —
Capulets
La haine dans
vos coeurs,
L'injure dans vos bouches,
De
ces pales
amants, barbares,
Approchez.
[9]
Dieu vous punit dans vos tendresses
—
Ses chdtiments , ses foudres vengeresses
Ont
le secret
de nos terreurs.
Entendez vous — sa voix qui tonne:
Pour que la haut
Ma vengeance pardonne
Oubliez, oubliez vos propres fureurs.
Chorus:
(Capulets and Montagues):
Mais notre sang rougit leur glaive.
Le notre aussi contre eux s'eleve.
Qui tua Mercutio et Benvolio?
lis ont tue Tybald et Paris done?
Perfides point de paix, non!
Laches point de
treve,
non!
Pere Laurence:
Silence, malheureux! pouvez-vous saris remords
Devant un tel amour etaler tant de haine —
Faut-il que votre rage en ces lieux se dechaine
Rallumee aux flambeaux des morts!
Grand Dieu qui voit au fond de I'dme
Tu sais si mes voeux etaient purs —
Grand Dieu! d'un rayon de ta flamme
Touche ces coeurs sombres et durs.
Et que ton souffle tutelaire
voix sur eux se levant
A ma
Chasse
et dissipe leur cole re
Comme
la paille
au gre du vent.
Chorus:
(Capulets and Montagues):
O Romeo, jeune astre eteint
O Juliette, douce fleur
Dans
ces
moments supremes
Les Capulets
jut
Comme
A
)
(
t
.
.
*.
sont prets
la paille
eux-memes
au gre du vent
s'attendrir sur ton destin.
Dieu, quel prodige etrange
Plus d'horreur
— plus de fiel —
Mais des larmes du Ciel
Toute notre dme change.
Mm.
B.
iiaijuefi (£o.
SOLID SILVER FLUTES
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Shakespeare Abroad
SHAKESPEARE,
has scored a
continuing success with the film of his
Julius Caesar!' This was the opening
remark of Delver Forfax, the J. Edgar
Hoover of musical research, after a vacation which associates averred he had
spent happily in the British Museum.
"How the great William got into Holly-
wood, and
I
see,
that followed, is quite a
chronicle. But equally striking are some
of the facts about how he got into Rusall
sian music with many fruitful results. Take for example Tchaikovsky and his orchestral treatments of Romeo and Juliet, The
Tempest, and Hamlet.
"As is well known, Mili Balakirev provided him with a scenario
and copious advice for the Fantasy-Overture, Romeo and Juliet.
"Russian translations of Shakespeare's plays were sporadic
and of slow growth.
"However, a number of translations into German and French
had long existed, and the two composers were acquainted with
those languages. Even so, what was the start of Balakirev's
Shakespeare lore? It is a striking story.
"Barely past the age of twenty, Balakirev attended a performance at a theatre in St. Petersburg. It was King Lear. A
German company presented it in their own language. That is,
with one exception
and a very important one. The name role
was enacted in English. Whether or no Balakirev could understand the words, the acting fired him with the inspiration to write
a King Lear Overture, which has been reckoned a masterly work.
To this he added incidental music for the entire drama.
"And the actor who inspired this Russian's music and a further
acquaintance with Shakespeare? England and Germany had sung
his praises in the roles of Othello, Macbeth, and Lear. He was the
American Negro, Ira Aldridge."
—
Serme?it
Pere Laurence:
Jurez done par I'auguste symbole
Sur le corps de la fille et sur le corps du fils
Par ce bois douloureux qui console
Jurez tous, jurez par le saint crucifix
De sceller entre vous une chaine eternelle
De
tendre charite
—
d'amitie fraternelle
Et Dieu qui tient en main le futur jugement
Au livre du pardon, inscrira ce serment.
Chorus:
Nous jurons
etc.
The Formal Plan
Berlioz has opened a preface to the score with these words: "There
no doubt
stood."
as a
that the special character of this
The
statement
may
work
will
is
be misunder-
well have been ironic. Already looked
upon
preposterous innovator, Berlioz was here proposing a work which
was "neither an opera in concert form nor a cantata, but a symphony
with chorus" — a dramatic symphony. He had been obstinately misunderstood by his vociferous opponents for reactionary or personal
reasons.
The symphony
Prologue
has the general plan of four movements with a
as a vocal
introduction to the
first.
The Love
Scene and the
Queen Mab Scherzo, both instrumental, correspond to the slow movement and scherzo, while the choral finale rounds out the whole. The
subject and its verbal treatment add various episodes to this scheme.
The composer
if
has restricted the solo voices to narration, realizing that
would have
He has solved the problem
they were given dialogue or musical characterization he
found himself writing an opera or a cantata.
of maintaining a symphonic medium by relegating the textual exposition to the first part of the symphony in which he outlines the whole
story in recitative style. In this way he has disencumbered himself of
verbal impedimenta and is free to translate into purely orchestral tones
the supreme moments of Shakespeare's tale as he had seen and experienced them years before.
The music of the ball obviously admitted no interpolation of voices.
The "scene- &' amour" is proof in itself that Berlioz could pour out his
heart and use his skill more intensely, more completely with only the
orchestra, just as Wagner reached his supreme moments in the orchestra
when his singers were silent. Thus the gossamer magic of the Queen
Mab Scherzo would have been destroyed at once by a text. When in the
end Friar Laurence addresses the two rival houses, the action is over.
A moral can be suitably drawn in vocal lines and the final reconciliation naturally provides a choral close in the grand manner.
[12]
Paganini as Benefactor
was in December, 1838, that Paganini, excited by a performance
of Berlioz's "Harold in Italy," knelt down upon the stage in the
presence of lingering members of the orchestra and kissed the comIt
poser's
tells
—
hand
how he
this
according to the memoirs of Berlioz,
who
also
received from Paganini a note of appreciation enclosing
bank draft for 20,000 francs.
There could not have been a greater boon for Berlioz at that moment.
Weighted down by the necessity of attending endless concerts and
writing paragraphs about them together with other routine duties
a
involving livelihood, he needed just this liberation to take a long
breath and compose exactly what he pleased. After the failure of Ben-
venuto Cellini which had barely attained a fourth performance at the
Opera, he needed a boost to his self-esteem. Over and above this, the
circumstances of the gift created discussion on all sides. What was
Paganini's motive?
sou")
,
He had
a reputation for being close-fisted ({'grippe-
many generous actions.* Some
trying to make an impression upon
a reputation contradicted by
accused the "virtuose infernal" of
the public
and the
anonymous donor.
critics;
others said he was taking the credit of an
Berlioz indignantly repudiated these cabals. His
gratitude to Paganini was beyond words.
pressed by the fact that Paganini
him
Even
his
enemies were im-
had knelt before Berlioz and
called
the only one to succeed Beethoven.
When
he asked Paganini what he should compose, his friend an-
nounced: "I cannot advise you. You know what suits you best."
A wise answer! Berlioz's mind was his own, and Shakespeare's
"Romeo and
Juliet," the subject
which he had been nurturing for
It was twelve years before that he
was the inevitable decision.
had first beheld the lovely Irish actress, Henrietta Smithson, in the
part of Juliet, which had transported him even more powerfully than
her Ophelia of the night before.
"Ah, what a change from the dull gray skies and icy winds of
Denmark to the burning sun, the perfumed nights of Italy! From
the melancholy, the cruel irony, the tears, the mourning, the lowering destiny of Hamlet, what a transition to the impetuous youthful
love, the long-drawn kisses, the vengeance, the despairing fatal conflict of love and death in those hapless lovers! By the third act, half
suffocated by my emotion, with the grip of an iron hand upon my
years,
heart, I cried to myself:
I
'I
am
lost! I
am
lost!'
Knowing no
English,
could grope but mistily through the fog of a translation, could see
The comment
Barzun is to the point "When Paganini refused to play for
he was a 'miser,' but when he played in the cholera-infested city for
the benefit of the plague victims, no one bothered to call him a hero."
*
another
of Jacques
:
artist's benefit,
[13]
Shakespeare only as in a glass, darkly. The poetic weft that winds
its golden thread in network through those marvelous creations was
invisible to me then; yet, as it was, how much I learned! An English
critic has stated in the Illustrated London News that, on seeing Miss
Smithson that night,
symphony on the
kind.
dreams.
And
play.' I
much
Only through much
was in
I
marry Juliet, and write my greatest
did both, but I never said anything of the
I said:
far too
'I
will
perturbation to entertain such ambitious
tribulation were both ends gained."
cannot be said that Henrietta was the true cause of the
symphony. She was rather the first eloquent spokesman before Berlioz
of a subject which was written in his stars. The once entrancing
yet
it
whose statuesque beauty and sweet, dulcet voice had deprived her admirer of all reason, had since become a dumpy, pedestrian wife, nagging, complaining, indulging in fits of jealousy. But
Berlioz' vision of Juliet was undimmed. He speaks of his delight at
last in plunging into his beloved subject: "of floating into a halcyon
sea of poetry, wafted onward by the sweet, soft breeze of imagination;
warmed by the golden sun of love unveiled by Shakespeare." Berlioz'
first impressions seem to have been absolutely indelible. He tells us
in his Memoirs that he mentioned the Queen Mab speech to Mendelssohn in Rome in 1831 as a subject for a scherzo, the kind of scherzo
Mendelssohn loved to compose. He instantly regretted having put the
idea into his friend's head. "For several years afterwards I dreaded
Fortunately, he never thought
hearing that he had carried it out.
"Juliet,"
.
of
.
.
it."
He
has also told us of the intensity of his childhood infatuation for
which stayed with him to his last years: "The other love came
to me in my manhood," he wrote after his wife's death, "with Shakespeare in the burning bush of Sinai, amid the thunders and lightnings
of poetry entirely new to me. It prostrated me, and my heart and my
whole being were invaded by a cruel, maddening passion in which the
love of a great artist and the love of a great art were mingled together,
"Estelle"
each intensifying the other." "She inspired you," Liszt then wrote to
him from Weimar, "you sang
of her; her task was done."
And
Jules
Janin, his royal literary colleague, then wrote lines in long retrospect
which must have deeply touched the composer:
"With what cruel rapidity pass away the divinities of fable! How
frail they are, these frail children of Shakespeare and Corneille! Alas!
it was not so very long ago, when, one summer's evening, in all the
arrogance of youth, we saw her in a balcony overlooking the road to
Verona, Juliet with her Romeo, Juliet, trembling in the intoxication
of her happiness, listening to the nightingale of the night and the
lark of the morning. She was in white,
[14]
and
listening dreamily, with a
sublime
fire
in her half-averted glance. In her lovely, pure golden
and poetry of Shakespeare ringing out in
triumphant tones, instinct with undying life. A whole world was
hanging on the grace, the voice, the enchanting power of this woman."
Berlioz' first raptures over the "Juliet" who was destined to become
his wife were mingled with an enthusiasm for Shakespeare which was
surely something far more than hypnotism by the Irish beauty. It ran
in full accord with the new "discovery" of Shakespeare by literary
Paris, a discovery in which Berlioz was a leading spirit, but still one
of many. Shakespeare could be called Berlioz* greatest love of all. He
made musical use in one way or another (besides a youthful attempt
at The Tempest) of Hamlet, for which he wrote incidental music;
King Lear, his title of an overture; and Much Ado About Nothing
voice
we heard
the prose
This is proof less of Berlioz' literary
taste, for he knew almost no English, than of the strong romantic side
of the Bard, the reaching power of his combined ardor and melancholy
as prime dramatic material.
(his opera, Beatrice et
Benedict)
.
no means without backers. He had become
across tables and in many columns of print.
Berlioz at this time was by
a controversial topic,
Carnegie Hall,
New
York
Boston Symphony Orchestra
CHARLES MUNCH,
Fifth
Music Director
and Last Pair of Concerts
Wednesday Evening, April y
Saturday Afternoon, April 10
[15]
him
Joseph d'Ortigue wrote a full length
book in defense of Berlioz as an operatic innovator comparable to
Gluck. Praise obviously biased, more provocative than persuasive, nurtured skepticism and antagonism, as it has before and since. Curiosity
Jules Janin defended
filled the
house for
stoutly;
Many notables were present,
intellectual Paris. The performing forces were
Berlioz' words. The Ball Music brought shouts
Romeo and
and a good part of
"satisfactory," to use
Juliet.
and the scherzo was accounted extraordinary; the rather
theatrical close brought renewed cheers. But the first part mystified
the audience, the funeral music of Juliet was received coldly, and the
love scene puzzled them and was received with more respect than
warmth. There were three performances, and the net return, as Berlioz
remarked bitterly in a letter, was 1100 francs.
of enthusiasm,
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